How "big" should I make an area for a game? (Text Adventure)

Jan 19, 2020
23
10
I keep trying to get this text adventure about a guy who gets bit by a werewolf, becomes a werewolf himself and goes around having sex with various women.

The problem is I keep trying to make an area big enough to explore, so not to make everything feel like one giant tunnel from one point to another but at times they tend to get very unwieldy and I grow frustrated.

So the question is, how "big" do I make the game? How do I trim out the fat of extra areas but not wind up pushing the player from A to B to C.
 

GNVE

Active Member
Jul 20, 2018
703
1,159
Not experienced with text adventures but I wonder is a tunnel such a bad thing? Having a focussed story makes it easier to tell a coherent interesting narrative.
You could try hiding the tunnel like with TellTale games. add choices that are interesting to the player but don't change the story. Add a few side paths that connect to the main story line at a later date.
Maybe you can also set a few endings you want to end up with. say 5. that might help you decide what branches are important and which need to rejoin the main story at some point.
 
Jul 14, 2018
417
1,602
Always remember what the purpose of a game is.

In your case - is the goal of the game to explore an area and, as a reward for exploring, sex scenes happen? The sex is adequately described, sure, but the real meat of it is how you get from A to B, not what happens at B.

Or is the goal of the game to fuck a lot, and the world exists just to keep it from literally being sex scene after sex scene after sex scene, to provide a lull in the action, that the trip from A to B exists simply because you don't want the player to read the start of a scene immediately after an orgasm description?

If it's the former - then just... real roughly imagining a public park sort of hunting ground, I'd figure a 4x4 (16 distinct rooms) is too small, but an 8x8 (which is 64 distinct rooms) will provide a better experience - if a little harder to navigate. Add in a few subrooms (area under a bridge, small cave, large hollow tree trunk, etc) and you're done.

If you were doing an entire city, then I'd say twelve or so "neighborhoods" of assorted rooms in a rough 4x5 arrangement branching off from two central intersecting roads of five rooms each should do it. Basically imagine a giant +, with eight neighborhoods on the side of each line, the four in the middle being the same for each line. Here, a shit map with a neighborhood subset. Each intersection'd be a room, the large squares are just signifying the neighborhood areas, the little map showing more or less how one might be arranged.

Example.png

Gives you a lot of room to move around as a player without it being overwhelmingly complex.

In any case, the biggest issue I've always faced in text adventures, adult or otherwise, is when a room has more than four exits and the point of the game isn't exploration, but doing specific tasks for specific people. Navigation, even when the engine used provides a map, is a pain in the ass just from having to differentiate the separate exits. Especially when it's all a giant grid.

I personally like it when the game has one or more centralized areas - either a room or a 2x2 space - where exits lead off to essentially corridors where you're generally presented with movement options of "Keep Going | Explore the new thing | Go back" - where a corridor will extend for, say, 6 rooms and each one of those six rooms has one room branching from it, which deadends.

It seems to help the player remember where things are without also requiring fifteen minutes of n n n n n n n n n w n n n n n n w n n n e n n w n n e s e n n.

But - that's assuming the purpose of the game isn't exploration, but the interactions.
 

hiya02

Member
Oct 14, 2019
169
95
In any case, the biggest issue I've always faced in text adventures, adult or otherwise, is when a room has more than four exits and the point of the game isn't exploration, but doing specific tasks for specific people. Navigation, even when the engine used provides a map, is a pain in the ass just from having to differentiate the separate exits. Especially when it's all a giant grid.
You can also use 'up' and 'down' directions to help navigating between areas that have 4+ exits.
To help the player to figure where to go, a 'tooltip' like mechanism informing where each of the available exits is leading can be helpful.
 
Jul 14, 2018
417
1,602
You can also use 'up' and 'down' directions to help navigating between areas that have 4+ exits.
To help the player to figure where to go, a 'tooltip' like mechanism informing where each of the available exits is leading can be helpful.
It's less about keeping the directions straight and more about keeping in mind where you are and where you're going. Option overload, essentially.

If I step in to a room, I know the opposite direction is back where I came from. Keeping it at four directions means at most I have three options to choose from on where to go. Adding in more adds in more complexity to keep straight in my head - even with a mapping feature.

Which isn't necessarily me saying "Only do 4 ever", just something I've noticed. I've played a few with about a dozen options and - tooltips or not - that gets overly complicated for no good reason.

Of course, I'll *also* add that you need to keep straight whether or not In and Out are valid options for certain areas or not as it's irritating when a game uses In and Out for a shed in one yard, and N/S for a shed in another.
 

Saki_Sliz

Well-Known Member
May 3, 2018
1,403
1,005
you could have, a, b, c, and then for a b and c, they could have a side room that just allows for a bit more exploring, with possibly a key in the side room of C that unlocks a second room connected to room a, so while it is linear, a b c, there is just a bit there that takes only a bit of work for the player to explore, but is not too complex, and they is a reward for looking around a bit more (a hidden room)